In U.S. Pat. No. 3,794,119 issued Feb. 26, 1974 in which I am a co-inventor there is described a horseshoe essentially designed to engage about and under a horse's hoof, there being provided a separate sling arrangement to be secured about the rear portion of the horseshoe to hold it in place on the horse's hoof. The advantages to be derived from such an arrangement are fully set forth in this patent. Chief among these advantages is the absence of any type of nails which oftentime cause injury to a horse's hoof or can cause infection.
In spite of a fair degree of success with the horseshoe described in the above-mentioned patent, there are still some problems resulting directly from the particular structure involved. First, there is a certain difficulty involved in placing the horseshoe on the hoof of a horse in that some stretching of the top lip or peripheral portion of the opening of the horseshoe is necessary. While an integral tongue structure has been provided on the rear to aid in applying the horseshoe, considerable time is necessary to properly fit the horseshoe on the horse's hoof. Further, the sling structure described while serving to hold the shoe to the horse's hoof can, after extended use, tend to work loose so that a sloppiness in the shoe results. There is also somewhat of a disadvantage in providing a separate sling which must be attached each time the horseshoe is applied in that the sling itself when not in use can become separated from the remaining portion of the shoe and if either one or the other of these components is lost, the remaining component is essentially useless.
Since issuance of the above-identified patent, I have conducted further extensive experiments in an attempt to provide improvements, particularly directed towards overcoming some of the above problems. In one instance, I proposed the use of a non-extensible metal strap in place of the sling to assure that the shoe would be secured onto a horse's hoof. The problem with an non-extensible strap is that the "size" of the horse's hoof can vary even though such variation is slight after prolonged use. As a consequence, the non-extensible strap circumferentially surrounding and contracted against the hoof can become continuously uncomfortable for the horse. On the other hand, if the strap is not sufficiently tight when the shoe is applied, the shoe can oftentimes be kicked off by the horse, particularly when galloping.